


A Million Little Pieces

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Children, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death of a Parent, F/M, Hallucinations, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Marriage, Mental Illness, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of suicide of a parent, Post War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Schizophrenia, Severus Snape Lives, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, dark themes, traumatic hallcinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26456752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: The past is inescapable. If you don’t face it might just eat you alive. For as long Severus could remember fear was like a cloak he always wore, but with his family on the line will he face it or will turn away?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Luna Lovegood, Severus Snape/Hermione Granger
Comments: 13
Kudos: 42
Collections: Knockturn Tricks or Diagon Treats





	A Million Little Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [KnockturnTricksOrDiagonTreats](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/KnockturnTricksOrDiagonTreats) collection. 



> Thank you Zorak23 for Betaing this and RavenPuffLove for Alphaing this.
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> Trick: Boggart
> 
> Thank you to both my alpha and my beta who for now shall remain nameless.
> 
> https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443
> 
> Hi, being this fic features a serious mental illness that affects real people it might be worth reading the link I posted above before doing so. I did research as much as I possibly could for this fic to check my own biases and the possible biases of some of the research that might exist within it.
> 
> The most important lesson of said research is the best thing that people can do is get help as soon as possible. The sooner treatment is introduced the more likely someone is to find relief. 
> 
> Many hugs to the people touched by this condition whether it be themselves, family or friends. You are not alone and help is out there.

Fear was something that Severus Snape had dealt with for as long as he could remember. It was like a wolf stalking him, waiting for him to have a sign of weakness so that it would rip him to shreds. Spying had made him at times downright paranoid. Seeing danger around every single corner, just waiting to snap him up in it’s jaws. The first time he had seen a boggart it twisted and changed, never stopping to be anything. Until it became his mother. Severus Snape feared change, he feared the monster in the dark that was not actually there, he feared his father, but the truth was he feared everything.

In all honesty, Severus Snape feared what he might one day become. He feared himself. 

What made him a good spy was not that he never was afraid, but the fact that he was simply so used to being scared that he learned to function within it. Panic became the iron walls around his mind. Suffering throughout the years had made him this way. Albus had been thrilled by this. The man understood it far too well from his own experiences. But, Dumbledore was dead, and much to his own shock Severus was not. He was alive and Severus was finally going to truly live or at least that’s what he promised himself. But normality seemed far more scary than war could ever be. 

* * *

Neither of them had planned to start a relationship with each other, or even with anyone. They did not plan to fall in love. But, their daughter had been a beautiful accident. A mixture between the two of them. Rose had his jet black hair and pale skin, but she had her mother’s curls and eyes. The moment the medi-wizard had placed her in Severus’ arms, everything had changed.

His fear warped, twisting itself into something else. In that instant Severus now understood why Lily was willing to die for Harry. It was his job to protect this baby; to keep her safe. To give her the life that he never had.

He reached out with his pale long-fingered hand, brushing a black curl from her tiny face. Rose stared at him for a just single breath though it felt in that instant as if time stood still. There were many things in his life that Severus could be ashamed of; many crossroads at which he had taken the wrong turn. But because of all that had happened to him, Rose could have a better life and in the end, that made it all worth it.

Hermione looked over at them from where she lay. Her brown eyes sleepy, the blankets tucked up to her chin. His beautiful wife, the woman who for whatever strange reason had decided she did in fact _love_ him. Loved him enough to tell Harry bloody Potter where to shove it when the man-child listed off all the reasons their relationship would not work. The woman who made him feel alive after Severus had spent decades feeling as if he was merely a walking corpse, simply waiting for the clock to strike midnight and his death to actually be realized. And then it wasn’t. 

A potion shoved between his lips, the beating of medical equipment, and then he slept. Hermione was there when Severus awoke. Things moved faster than either would have chosen, but after so much death and suffering they chose to play the cards that they were dealt. That seemed like a lifetime ago, but it wasn’t so long ago. He set his thoughts of the past aside. 

Severus eased the newborn into the bassinet by her tired mother’s bed.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Hermione asked softly, sleep clinging to her voice. “I think she looks like your mother, but I have only seen a few photos, so I may be wrong.”

“I think she looks like herself,” Severus said through clenched teeth. Trying to hide his anger at the comment from his wife knowing that Hermione didn’t mean it to be hurtful. He tangled his fingers into his summer robes, trying to dispel the tension from his body. It was an innocent comment. His wife would not understand the nerve that she had struck.

Hermione Jean Snape did not know the story of Eileen Prince, the woman who lost her mind to madness. The same madness that took her father before her and possibly all the Princes before him. If Severus had any say in the matter it would stay that way.

“You’re right, Severus,” she sighed. “It’s just my lack of sleep talking.” 

Sitting up, Hermione reached for their daughter, her hands shaking ever so slightly as she did so. Severus lightly pushed aside the woman’s hands. His wife gave him a borderline wounded look; her brown eyes narrowing.

“Let me get her for you, Hermione,” he murmured. “You are still quite tired and I can simply hand her to you.”

It was something simple. A thought most wouldn’t even think about. Hermione was tired. Her hands were shaking, but the reason why Severus did not allow his wife to reach for their daughter had little to do with those things and everything to do the fear that had taken up residence in his stomach, carving it’s way up into his throat, sinking into his brain and turning him into some strange version of a marionette doll. The man who had made it his life goal to control every single aspect of his mind and body had not a drop of control over the insanity he was now partaking in. And that was what he was acting like that he had finally given into the madness. 

Severus picked up their daughter holding her close to his chest, standing still for a second before like a jolt he snapped out of it.

He loved Hermione and she loved him. This was their daughter and his wife loved her just as much as Severus himself did.

Severus handed Hermione their daughter and bolted from the room without a word. His feet hitting the cream coloured tile was the only sound he could hear. Each step pulling the weight off his chest. Severus knew what was wrong, the paranoia that plagued his own mother had finally come from him. He knew in his heart that he should tell his wife, or at the very least a mind healer. But a tiny little voice in the back of his mind told him not to.

If Severus told anyone they would lock him away. Never let him see Rose again. Drug him to the point oblivion, like they had done to his mother. He wouldn’t be a father to his little girl. Severus would not be a father, he would be a ghoul, a creature. Severus would be his daughter’s boggart. Just as his mother was, he could settle on the fact it was out of his hands before the fear took root in his mind. 

He was outside now. Standing in the bright sunshine, under the pine trees in front of St Mungo’s. It was easier to breathe out here. Easier to stay calm. Severus could see his own irrationality quite clearly in the light of day. Shutting his eyes and turning his face toward the sky Severus took a deep breath, saying softly to himself, “Mother, I wish you were still here. But if you were still here, I wouldn’t be behaving like this.”

Turning on his heel, he walked back into the hospital. Severus would make an excuse, blame lack of sleep, the war, and even being a new parent to Hermione. He would bury these feelings, until they exploded on him once more worrying those who cared about him. Just like his mother had done what felt like a lifetime ago. Not choosing to get help meant the man was digging himself a hole, but Severus could not see the level getting deeper and deeper burying himself along the way.

In this instant, however, he was a husband, a father, and a shop owner. That last thing he needed to worry about was the fact he was being quite odd about his daughter. All parents acted a little bit crazy when it came to their first child, didn’t they?

* * *

Rose was two now, toddling around sticking her fingers into everything. Her curiosity was something that her mother loved and her father was a nervous Nellie about. Hermione had gone back to work as soon as she possibly could. It wasn’t that she didn’t love being a mother, but her own mind tended to go a million miles a minute. The woman needed to do something; she needed to feel that she was in fact making a difference. Thus it was Severus who offered to be the child’s main caretaker, hiring a shop assistant and doing much of his own work in the lab at their home. Dobby the house elf served as the man’s eyes and ears both on the man’s work and the child depending on where Severus needed him to be. 

He loved being here for these moments and living a rather quiet life in comparison to the years gone by. Severus stirred the potion, softly humming to himself as he did so. It tended to calm his mind, and gave him an escape from the world around him and his own thoughts.The same that giving in to them would cause an explosion within his mind. It would possibly allow another to know that his fears rested on a three legged stool. They were ready to collapse on a moment’s notice. Causing him to act like a bloody nutter. 

It was just a matter of keeping things under wraps. Something which he had been doing without thought for as long as Severus could remember.

A soft pop filled his ears; the house-elf stood before him. He was dressed in the faded grey tee-shirt that the creature insisted on wearing. It had once belonged to Harry Potter, many years ago. Dobby only worked for them because Potter had asked the creature to.

“Professor Snape,” Dobby wheezed, waving his small grey hands as he did so. “Young Mistress has fallen down the stairs.”

Severus snatched up the elf by the collar of his shirt, hoisting the large eared creature up to be level with the man’s face.

“You allowed _WHAT_ to happen to my daughter?” Severus snarled, silently putting a preservation charm on the potion he was working on. He was doing far enough exploding at the moment to need another, like some stupid first year. “Where is she? Take me to her, NOW!” He didn’t bother to correct the elf as he normally did that he was no longer a professor.

“Yes, sir,” the house elf sighed softly. “Dobby didn’t mean for it to happen, Dobby swears, Professor!”

“Take me to her. NOW!” he spat, clutching the elf tighter. The elf Apparated them to the little girl.

Rose was fine beyond a set of scraped knees, torn tights, and the tears that streamed down her red face. Severus let go of Dobby, trying his best to gently set the creature down. The floo flames roared; Hermione, it seemed, was home. The very thought made him want to rip out his own hair. How was he going to explain this? The house-elf who looked like he had been thrown into a bounce house, the child with her tear streaked cheeks and her hair a mess, and Severus himself looking as if he wanted to jump out of his own skin.

It was foolish to worry, downright stupid even. Hermione was his wife and she of all people would understand. She went to work as soon as her boots hit the carpet. Telling Dobby to start dinner and healing their daughter’s scrapes before Severus could even get a word in edgewise. It was just as it always was, the woman settling things and giving him the ability to shove the worry back under the rug where it belonged.

“Did you have a good day?” Hermione asked, as she hung up her robes on the hook, facing away from him.

“It was okay,” Severus murmured, his voice trailing off as he did so. “Yours?”

She went on about the minster and how frustrating he was. How she wished it was Kingsley and how it was hard to fight the system while you were a part of it. It felt nice to listen to this, to escape into his wife’s worries and frustrations. To set aside his own rambling thoughts and everything else. It wasn’t as if anything else truly mattered. The house of cards that Severus had created of his mind and his life could be blown over with one strong wind. It wasn’t a matter of if but when it would come. 

* * *

  
  


Later that night in their bed Severus reached for his wife, pulling her close. In the candlelight, Hermione nearly glowed. He lightly placed the book that the woman was reading aside, kissing her forehead as he did so. Severus went to work on the buttons of Hermione’s dressing gown undoing them one by one. He leaned back dragging her along with him. Shoving her curls aside, Severus pressed his lips into the space where Hermione’s neck shoulder, feeling the woman shiver under his touch. Her body was like an instrument and he was the only one who could play it exactly right.

Severus slipped his fingers into her knickers, the woman crying out under his touch. Nothing else mattered. Not the nightmares, not the worries, the fears, or even feeling as if somehow along the way the pause button on his life got turned back on. Hermione Jean Snape was his. His wife, his lover and the mother of his daughter. Severus’ fingers were inside the pretty witch now, causing her to whimper from the feeling of it.

“You’re mine, you know that?” He hissed into her ear. “You can be anything you want to be. Bloody Minister of Magic if you so desire to, but no one else can do this to you. No one else can make you feel this way. And I will never get over that fact.”

Hermione came with a cry then, every inch of her tightening, twisting, screaming his name. Her breaths came out as huffs and hisses as she came back to earth in his arms. Twisting herself around to face him. Hermione stared up at him in the candlelight. Her brown eyes shining brightly, a smile on her pink lips, and her cheeks rosy from their activities.

“I can take care of you if you would like?” Hermione asked, biting on her lip as she did so. Hermione reached under his nightshirt, her hand wrapping around his cock as she did so.

A gasp fell from his lips instead of an answer. His head fell back, without thinking about it, his eyes shutting. His wife’s small warm hand wrapped around him back and forth. Bringing him closer and closer to the edge. Her lips on his forehead, they were stoking fire under his skin, and Hermione’s touch was like lightning. Everything exploded within him, he came with a cry of her name, “Hermione.”

Hermione used a cleaning spell on both of them. Wandlessly whispering the spell under her breath, which Severus could not hear. No one else but from her would he allow magic on him without his permission. Hermione held not only his trust within her hands, but at times she also held his sanity, though she did not know that. And Severus hoped to keep it that way. No good would come out of letting anyone pick apart his mind - not even his wife.

Severus saw it out of the corner of his eye. Some sort of creature; a ghoul possibly. It sat in the corner twisting it’s fingers against its blood soaked lips. It was a deathly ashen pale with eyes the color of dried blood. It had no nose, just like Voldemort himself. Maybe it was the Dark Lord for all he knew. Coming back to haunt his nightmares just like had once haunted his days. 

“You are a monster,” the creature hissed. “And you are a fool to think that you can keep such a thing from her. They both would be better off if you killed yourself. So go ahead, Severus, and do it.”

“You are not real,” Severus whispered. “You are not real. You are simply part of my own mind playing tricks on me. The only real fear is fear itself.”

The monster disappeared then. It vanished into thin air as if it had never been there at all. 

“Are you alright?” Hermione asked, clearly still half asleep.

“Never better,” he whispered. The only one he lied to more than her was himself. 

* * *

Rose was three now, playing on the playground. Severus watched her far closer than the wizarding parents that surrounded him. Most of the bloody careless creatures only used charms of all things to monitor their children. Magic could only do so much and was only supposed to be backups for your eyes, but he did not say anything, not bothering to waste his breath.

Draco Malfoy stood next to him, his white-blond hair blowing in the wind. The man watched his own son, Scorpius, though he was softer with his looks instead of the hawkish nature Severus was surely portraying. The boy who had been like a son to him had ended up with all people Luna Looney Lovegood. But, the woman had been exactly what the man needed. She was like sunshine, forgiving, trusting, and understanding. Not unlike Hermione was to Severus, though his wife, unlike the Malfoy heir’s, was far more logical.

Severus could never imagine Hermione suggesting that they get something like niffler as a pet. Those blasted creatures generally riffled through their owner’s things daily, even if they were quite cute. He had got lost in his own rambling thoughts, losing sight of Rose.

Where was she? Where was his daughter? His greatest fear in that instant was not Voldemort returning, someone hurting him or even Hermione, but someone trying to use Rose to get to him. Severus felt the bead of cold sweat roll down his neck shivering in the warm spring day. Panic filled him as if he was cauldron and it was just waiting for it to explode. A little voice in the back of his mind said Rose was gone and never coming back. She was gone because of the things he had done. That he would never see her again and Hermione would hate him for the rest of the days of their lives.

Draco grabbed his arm shaking him as he did so, snapping him out of the rambling jumbled thoughts of fear.

“Look at them, Severus, aren’t they so cute?” Draco asked, pointing at their children as the two hopped from one platform to the other merely a few feet away from them off to the right.

Severus let out the breath he did not realize he was holding. There was Rose, her black curls blowing the wind. Next to her the little blond boy who was grinning at his father. His daughter with a hop jumping from a red flower platform to a green leaf. She turned to face her father, noticing what Draco and the others it seemed did not. The child ran over to him. Slamming into him like a quaffle hitting a Quidditch player. Severus picked his little girl up pulling her close. Checking over every single bit of her that he could see. His stomach vacated his throat as he did so.

Everything was alright, Severus thought, there was nothing to fear. Not a bloody thing.

It was then he saw it, sinking behind a tree a boggart or at least what he assumed it to be one. His fears being so vast and so much a part of him never exactly being able to hold their form the way they did with others. His blood went cold. This time it was his mother. The day she killed herself. The rope noose around her neck, her black hair hanging into her thin bloodless face and then it was no longer his mother, but it was him.

Severus was the one hanging from the tree in the playground. No one else could see it, or at least it didn’t seem to be the case. No one was screaming, no one else was seeing their fears. If that stupid class Lupin did children’s fears were very much on the surface like hitting a nail on the head. There was nothing deep about their fears, but the same could not be said about adults. He knew he should use the spell, but he could not remember it, and instead he blurted out an odd excuse to Draco. Barely even understanding the words that were spilling out of his own mouth.

“Draco, I need to get home and make dinner,” Severus mused.

“Have a good day, Mr. Mom,” Draco said, smiling as he did so and tipping his imaginary hat, silly man that he was. 

Severus gave no snarky retort like he normally would, allowing the words to hang around without confronting them. His feet carried both him and Rose away from that happy park with the boggart no one else seemed able to see until he was behind the door of his home and behind the locked door. He sat Rose down and fell to the floor like a doll who had their strings cut. Someone was crying, not Rose, because she was trying to cheer Severus up. She curled into his side, patting her father as if he were some sort of lost puppy. 

But no one else was home, so who was the person that was sobbing? Right, it was him. Losing his mind in front of his child just like his mother before him. Would he too end up killing himself like Eileen had once done?

* * *

That’s where Hermione found them after Draco sent her an urgent owl about how her husband was acting quite strange. Father and daughter sitting up against the door. Child brushing the man’s tears away. The former spy was sobbing and no matter how hard he tried could not seem to get out a single word.

When he finally could speak what came out of his mouth was utter insanity. Mutterings about boggarts, his mother and death. Hermione took Rose upstairs, leaving the child under Dobby’s watchful gaze. There were dishes to be done sitting in the sink from breakfast this morning and possibly even dinner last night. Trash that needed to be taken out, children’s toys that needed to be picked up, and lastly a husband who seemed to be losing his mind bit by bit.

Hermione had tried to ignore it with the same desperation her husband tried to hide it from her. They were foolish, downright stupid even, to pretend that all was right in their little world, but isn’t that what you did when you loved someone? For a lifetime Severus had carried the weight of others. Now it was his turn to allow someone to carry a bit of his pain and suffering. That is what love was, wasn’t it?

_Being strong when the other was weak._

Severus wasn’t a danger to anyone, it seemed to Hermione, least of all their daughter. That, however, didn’t change the fact that the man was falling into madness. Severus Snape, the man who always seemed to have it all together - didn’t.

Hermione sighed, her hands deep in the soapy dishwater. Magic could clean these, but she needed the time it took to do so the Muggle way. It allowed her to shut off her mind as she did so. Each scrub gives her a chance to process each of her own rambling thoughts. When the dishes were done and put away she went back to check on her husband and found him exactly where she left him. Severus was blankly staring out at their sitting room from his place by their front door.

Hermione helped the man up, half carrying him up the stairs as she did so. Her mind went back to the beginning - before their life had gone up in shambles. Hermione Jean Snape was good at ignoring what did not please her; looking back, that’s how she nearly ended up married to Ron bloody Weasley. Even as she noted all what her husband had started doing that seemed a little crazy, part of her mind screamed it was not an issue. Severus was just Severus. A little odd, a little strange, but he was just who he was. No different than he had been for all the years she had known him.

That wasn’t true though. Hermione knew it as well as she knew anything. Severus had never been this odd before and it had only become worse as the years passed. Bit by bit the man she loved was slipping away, lost in the trap that was his own mind. She had to save him. To pull him from the jaws that wanted to snap and chew him up. 

They had gotten together not long after her and Ron had a rather public breakup. They both needed someone to go with to a stupid ministry gala that neither wanted to attend. That turned into coffee in London, which turned into lunch in Edinburgh, became dinners in each other's homes. Not long after they found out about their daughter, which pushed their plans ahead quicker than they would have liked. However, when it was all said and done they were happy, until the birth of Rose.

It was silly little things at first. The man would be overly worried about little things, but was also forgetting things he needed to do at work. The zoning out randomly, the nightmares, and the constant worrying. Alone, the details were nothing, but together they were far much more. Piece by piece they clicked into place. Hermione sat down next to her husband on the bed that they shared. Her fingers went to work undoing her braid. Severus stared up at her with his coal black eyes.

“I am sorry, Hermione,” Severus muttered, sighing as he did so, head in his hands. Seeming to have pulled himself together, somewhat.

“What are you sorry about?” Hermione asked, tucking her one knee up under her chin. “You have done nothing wrong, at least from where I stand.”

“Says the person who had to rush home likely because Draco Malfoy told you that your husband lost his bloody mind,” he deadpanned, as he turned to stare out the window. “I should have told you, I know that, but it seemed easier to just pretend it wasn’t happening.”

“You shouldn’t…” She said trailing off.

“Shouldn’t what,” he snapped. “Don’t you get it, Hermione, the boggart isn’t the closet… It’s in my head. I saw my mother, my dead mother hanging from a tree. With a noose around her neck. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t actually real today. It was my greatest fear from childhood brought to life.”

Hermione tried to say something. She opened her mouth and shut it. Her thoughts running through her mind like racehorses racing towards the finish line. Her own heart pounding and the sound filling her ears.

Her husband continued, “I wake up every single night covered in sweat, shaking. I have seen you and Rose die in a thousand different ways, sometimes even at my own wretched hands. Tell me you want to share a bed with a madman, even if the man knows that he is mad? You cannot. Nobody can. Not even you, one of the most forgiving people I have ever met.”

Severus undressed silently as he curled up under the blankets once he was finished.

“I will leave if you want me to,” Severus said softly, as if he was simply talking about the weather, not that he wanted to leave his wife and daughter.

“Why in bloody Merlin would you think that?” Hermione growled, getting ready for bed herself. “Do you know what in sickness and in health means? It doesn’t just mean when it’s your body, you know that, right? I am here for the long haul, Severus Snape, not just the easy roads. So no, you will _not_ be leaving, unless that’s what you really want to do. If you don’t, we are going to get you an appointment with a mind healer and figure out what’s going on in that bloody head of yours.” 

Her husband said nothing, simply turning to her, and nodding his head. Hermione knew she was a bulldozer of sorts. It was the nickname Harry had given her so long ago in reference to her behavior about house-elves. But this was far more important; something was going on with Severus, and they had to figure out what exactly it was.


End file.
